From 22th to 27th of August we (Martina & Magdi) travelled to Veszprém, Hungary, near lake Balaton, to attend the 17th European Congress of Herpetology at the Panonnian University. We were curious about all the herpetologists and the news in this field. The last congress was 2 years ago in Luxembourg. We arrived on late thursday afternoon, starting with the Welcome Ceremony in the evening where we were happy to meet many faces we already knew: the „fire salamanders from Vienna“, guys from the Netherlands, the funny Italians Enrico, Raoul and Francesco, the „german fire salamanders“ and many more.
Am Freitag Morgen ging es dann mit den Talks los. Es waren vielen spannende Forschungsthemen dabei, auch wieder einige News über Feuer- und Alpensalamander. Am Freitag Abend waren wir mit unserem Poster bei der Poster Session dabei: Poster Ungarn

On friday morning, the scientific talks started. Many thrilling topics were amongst them, including some news about fire and alpine salamanders. On friday evening, we presented our poster during the 1st poster session: Poster Ungarn Many interested people asked about our project and the experiences we made in working with children. This topic is rare at such a scientific congress. We also spread our salamander-booklets in German, Italian and Spanish, whereas our pins and stickers were the most wanted ones! The demand on them didn´t stop, so we left them near our poster where everybody could grab them. Now our salamander-pins are spread all over the world: from Brazil to the states, all over Europe down to Australia! In the evening, we were all meeting in „our pub“, the Scorpio…

The news reported by the Netherlands were more than bad and really alarming. Their fire salamander populations were declining about 96% in the last few years. They collected many individuals to start a breeding programme and save their populations from extinction. The reason for this dramatic decline is a new pathogen, a fungus called Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans, that kills salamanders within a few days. The scientists fear that this fungus is already spread all over Europe. For more information, click here! Here you can have a look at the „SOS fire salamander“ page that has been created by the netherlands, where one can even adopt fire salamanders to support their breeding programme. Nevertheless, we are very alarmed now to watch our fire salamander populations in Austria (and everywhere in Europe) very intensively so that we can discover and stop declines early enough! So if you find many dead salamanders without any visible signs of injuries, immediately inform people who work on salamanders!!! After 4 days of congress, our heads were full of knowledge and we decided to relax at the lake Balaton during the afternoon. The sun was shining and we nearly felt like being at the sea…

We also saw many water birds, different frogs, fire bellied toad, grass snake, dragonflies, hoppers and one European terrapin (Emys orbicularis). The terrapin was crossing the street and we had to do an emergency brake with our bus. Another reason why one should not drive through a national park by bus…

After a solid hungarian meal (they really have a good kitchen there) and a quick good-bye, we went back to Salzburg in a 5-hour-trip. The congress was really worth going there, we met many nice people, got many new important infos and picked up some motivation for our future work! Hungary is a beautiful country (even if a little bit too plain for us mountain goats) with friendly, nice people, and is really worth a visit!